Hybrid Theory EP - Forgotten
by The Sh33p
Summary: Five months after the events of the Cell Games, three months after the events of Gyoosan Budoukai, a revolt in Hell leads Son Gohan into one busy day he`ll never forget... Continuation from Hybrid Theory. AU, mild violence and cussing.


**Disclaimer:** I do not own DBZ. Do own a Linkin Park CD if you haven`t guessed, but I don`t own DBZ...  
  


* * *

**Hybrid Theory: Epilogue**  
_Forgotten_  


  
  
Gohan sighed a bit. He`d hoped his increased power after the Cell Games, and more recently the incident at the Gyoosan Budoukai would decrease the amount of time he spent studying and help him get time to train more often. He could now easily burn through the books his mother gave him almost faster than she could throw them at him, but that just meant she went out of her way to keep him grinding into them even more. Even going so far as to force him to memorize and copy every book three times to prove he had even done them like he said he did. He knew she meant well, that much was true, but he also knew she was at least partially insane for making him go to such extremes to prove it. _"Wonder why she`s making me do this much work,"_ he asked himself while copying down another twenty pages in a half a second. He almost thought it was some strange way of punishing him for letting his father get killed, or perhaps slipping up at the recent tournament even though with Bojack`s lackeys there he didn`t have much of a choice. "Why?" He asked aloud finally, finishing the book and scratching the back of his head.   
  
On the plus side, she`d learned to let him be more independant. For one, he didn`t have to wear those old traditional robes anymore while studying, or trousers. Instead, he finally got his way and got her to make him a few smaller copies of the douji his father had worn, even managed to use his birthday money to go out shopping for newer clothing. Not to say he didn`t keep around what he already had, he could just go into a real city now without being stared at. That was a plus.   
  
Of course the hair didn`t much help out...   
  
"Gohan!" He tilted his head up and waited for her to call him again. "Gohan!" She yelled, a bit annoyedly so as he smirked a bit. _"Guess I`m needed then,"_ he thought, shutting the book he`d just copied and walking downstairs. ChiChi looked at him a bit sternly but her features softened after a few seconds. He looked too much like Goku to be mad at.   
  
"I need you to go buy some things for me," she exclaimed simply, handing him a slip of paper and then a few fifty zenni bills. "You can keep any change from what you buy," she stated. "And if you`re quick about it I`ll let you train more often for a whole week," she added hastily, watching Gohan`s entire face light up in response. "Just be..." He was already out the door. "Careful," she added in a mumble. _"I wonder if he noticed,"_ ChiChi thought idly. Gohan certainly was his father`s son, wouldn`t notice something like what she was thinking. "You have a good big brother waiting for you when you come out, Goten," ChiChi said to the growing life in her belly...   
  
  
  
Hell. More accurately, the Hell of the Strong. The place in which the real tyrants were placed. They and their stronger followers, anyway. Here was the place where the evil were supposed to rot with nothing but their own strength. If not for the fact the Hell of the Obedient was several levels below, there would have most likely been a war of incredible magnitude when the lot of them had even arrived here. As it stood, the Hell of the Strong had few occupants compared to the other Hells. Each of them though...   
  
"Now my friend, you are going to give us the way out of here or I am going to beat you for all eternity," Cell demanded, punching another Ogre brutally in the small of the back. "So just spit it out and we`ll all be happy," he added, plunging his hand deeply into the Ogre`s back. Babu screamed in response. A revolt in the hell closest to Heaven and the mortal plain of existence and they had been undermanned and underequipped in every way to deal with it. Sometimes, Babu hated his job.   
  
"Such a way with words," Frieza snidely commented, looking over his shoulder at his smiling father. "Don`t you agree Father?" King Kold laughed a bit. "Certainly my boy, I like him already," he smirked. "Sad, Frieza," a familiar voice called out from above. "Even in death you refuse to learn." Frieza smiled casually as Cell looked up from his current beating tool and turned his gaze to the newly arrived Goku, who was being accompanied by some green guy in ceremonial robing. "Well, well, well. If it isn`t Goku," Cell quipped. "Who`s your friend?" He asked. Goku glared at him. "You too, Cell? Don`t you people ever learn your mistakes?"   
  
All four members of the Ginyu Force shrugged. "Get them," Frieza advised. All the members of the Ginyu Force responded by posing in the dumbest way possible and taking off while Goku nonchalantly rolled his eyes. "I`ll let you handle them," Pikkon said uncaringly, deciding to pull back a bit and see just what this new arrival could do. "Ginyu-HO!"   
  
_ "What kind of idiots are these guys?"_ Pikkon thought as the four of them launched into the air at Goku. Without even powering up all the way, Goku downed Jeice, slapped Burter into the water, ducked under Rikkum`s oversized foot and blasted him in the face at point blank and then flared his ki just a bit, throwing Guldo into the ground hard enough to bounce him back up into the air and take a blow into the gut that sent him into the water below as well. "Next?!" Goku demanded while actually powering up. Cell looked at Frieza and waited expectantly. "After you, dear friend," Frieza said. "That`s all I was waiting for," Cell smiled.   
  
"I`m the one who killed you to begin with and you want another round?" Cell asked. "Your dumber than you think I am!" He laughed out before launched harshly from the ground and charging at Goku, who was gradually beginning to turn into a Super Saiyan during Cell`s approach.   
  
_ "He`s stronger than Goku and I combined unless Goku`s hiding a lot of energy. He`s also focused solely on him, leaving him wide open..."_ Pikkon`s aura lit up like a nova around him, obscuring him from view to a vague outline within the fiery burst of energy around his body. _"For this."_ Cell was closing with Goku more and more with every passing second, bringing both hands forward to try and grab him as the air around Goku and Cell both began to blur and glow. And then that effect stopped as a fireball in the vague shape of a man wearing an oversized hat flew up between the pair from behind and below, a hard, burning kick striking Cell dead on in the chin and throwing him up into the air before executing a quick zanzoken and appearing behind him, slamming both hands down into Cell`s collar and throwing him down into the water. "What?!" Goku yelped in surprise. Cell was stronger than he and Pikkon combined unless Pikkon was hiding power far higher than his own, and the green skinned fighter had effectively slapped Cell around like a rookie in two moves. Goku could barely even follow him.   
  
"How did he do that?!" Frieza asked only to feel a hard left palm smashed into his cheek, through him into the ground as Pikkon faded back into view again and caught King Kold in the gut with an elbow, doubling the huge changeling emperor over and then causing his tail to fall limp behind him. Pikkon didn`t even wait for anything else to happen, delivering two swift kicks into the both of them and sending them flying into the lake before taking flight and stopping up above it. "Hyper Tornado Attack..."   
  
And in a matter of seconds, all of the attempted revolters had been effectively impaled for the time being, and Goku hovered in shock for several seconds before touching down on a nearby cliff, Pikkon not far behind. "I guess you really didn`t need my help after all, huh?" Goku asked surprisedly. "Apparently not," Pikkon answered calmly, lowering the mood slightly. "I don`t know where the other revolters went though," he said. Goku turned back to survey the area. "Others?"   
  
"Yes. It would have taken at least two others to accomplish the kind of thing they did. I`m willing to bet you probably know them as well," Pikkon answered. Goku thought for a long, hard moment and then replied.   
  
_ From the top to the bottom  
Bottom to top I stop  
At the core I've forgotten  
In the middle of my thoughts  
  
_ "Raditz and Nappa," Goku finally responded. "What would happen if they got free?" He asked. "They`d have a full day in the mortal plain if someone didn`t get them. Is there anyone else?" Goku thought another long moment. "Did Bojack arrive yet? What about his lackeys?"   
  
"I don`t know," Pikkon admitted, several dark blue-green skinned men falling from the sky a few seconds later and smacking into the ground. "Okay, so Bojack`s men are here," Goku pointed out, vaguely recognizing each of the three as Gokuha, Puujin and Bido. "Where`s Bojack though?"   
  
  
  
Satan City. The big city. The place named for "Earth`s Messiah, twice in one year." What a crock...   
  
_ "As long as people are happy,"_ Gohan thought with a smile, walking into the city limits of the bustling metropolis and hitching a ride on the back of a bus the rest of the way. He didn`t really want to draw attention to himself, and people weren`t really likely to notice the fact he was dressed as three of the men who fought Cell had been, mainly since so many had been paying attention to Cell and Mister Satan, and even Piccolo and Tien. The ones who caught the most attention with their appearances. After a short time though, Gohan hopped off the back of the bus and landed stably on his feet, legs bent at the knees before he stood up straight again, brushing himself off and going about his business, unaware he was being watched from a slight distance away.   
  
_ "Let`s see,"_ Gohan thought, taking out the small slip of paper his mother had given him and looking around. "Traditional Wear," he mumbled, remembering the name of the story already from the times ChiChi had taken him there. He then read over the instructions on the back of the note:   
  


_ Give this to the lady at the counter, she knows  
what I usually buy so you don`t have to worry  
about picking anything out. - Mom  
_

  
"Now if I could just find _where_ the place is," he quipped to himself. "Gohan? Is that you?" A familiar voice popped up from behind and to his right. "Oh, hey Videl," Gohan waved with a smile. Several people were surprised to see Hercule`s daughter chatting it up with a boy who looked so weird, but few were prepared to raise a question about it. "What are you doing in the city?" Videl asked while walking up to him. "My mom sent me to buy her some clothes, I guess," he answered with a shrug. _"His mom makes him do that? Geesh, he`s broken already,"_ she mused with a smirk. "What`s so funny?" Gohan asked while cocking his head to the side a bit. "Nothing," Videl answered. "Why`re you blushing then?" He asked. Videl hadn`t really been blushing but the expression on her face and the sudden flush of red after that made it worth the question as he let out a sheepish laugh.   
  
"Hey!" She yelped, smacking him on the shoulder jokingly.   
  
_ "Cute,"_ she thought, watching the pair interact from her position a ways down the street. It was surprising really, no one even noticed the short, orange haired young woman with dark blue-green skin and matching eyes in a pair of white khaki pants and a black t-shirt, watching after the boy like a hawk. _"How does a naive little runt like him turn into an absolute killing machine?"_ She asked herself with a raised eyebrow. _"And better yet, why did he leave me alive?"_ She asked again, ducking into an alley before anyone, in specific Gohan and Videl, could notice her.   
  
Videl laughed a bit finally, taking the joke in stride in a way her father would be incapable of. Hell, he never took an insult. "So cruel," she poked. "Am not," Gohan answered, suddenly tensing up and shooting his gaze up to the sky. "See something?" Videl asked, stepping up beside Gohan. "Something like that," he answered. Well, in his view it _was_ something like seeing something. Several seconds passed before it all became terribly apparent.   
  
_ In the middle of my thoughts  
Taken far from my safety  
The picture is there  
The memory won't escape me  
But why should I care  
  
_ "You?!" Gohan yelped as the larger figure touched down on the sidewalk a few yards in front of him, baring a cocky smirk, just like before. "Hello nephew. Long time no see," Raditz said. Videl frowned a bit at the lumbering giant of a man standing a short distance away, who had seemingly paralized Gohan just by speaking to him.The way he dressed didn`t much freak her out, his hair might have been long and unruly but that didn`t bother her much either. It was something else...   
  
That`s when she saw his tail. _"What the heck?"_   
  
"You know this guy?" Videl asked, looking over at the paler-than-usual boy beside her, who`s mouth sagged open an inch or so. Videl promptly elbowed him in the left arm, drawing a gulp as he still continued to stare blankly at Raditz.   
  
"Gohan, who is he?"   
  
Raditz remained silent, tail lazily lashing about as people gave three of them a very, _**very**_ wide area without intrusion, most turning around or darting into stores.   
  
"He`s Raditz. He`s **my _uncle_**."   
  
"Took ya long enough. Who`s the bitch?"   
  
Gohan frowned and raised his ki sharply, drawing a loud laugh from Raditz while Videl turned to look at the big fellow with a glare of utter contempt. "_Bitch_?" Videl demanded harshly. Raditz stopped laughing long enough to look at her. "You know, if these were still the days when I was purging planets, I`d probably be screwing you senseless right now," he chuckled out, obviously trying to anger the ten year old girl before him that his nephew seemed to have taken a liking to. His words made Gohan get even angrier, alright. Videl on the other hand...   
  
Went psychotic and kicked Raditz square between the legs, making the big Saiyan lurch forward with a gasp. "Ow," he groaned out, holding himself. Gohan grabbed Videl by the arm and sent her a look saying that she should let him deal with things. She growled and yanked her arm free, letting him know she was angry but allowing him time to deal with this as he wanted. "How are you here, Raditz?" Gohan asked, stepping up and staring straight up at his uncle with absolute malice. Raditz was about to answer when he looked down and saw exactly what he`d wanted to cultivate in his nephew years earlier: Saiyan rage. It burned in Gohan`s eyes and left Raditz speechless and a little scared. "Better yet..."   
  
"Let`s take this somewhere else. See ya, Videl." Gohan gave a wave before throwing his arm up at the sky, a wave of invisible ki ripping off from beneath Raditz and throwing him from the ground, straight up, with Gohan not too far behind. Screw blending in. Videl was left to fume to herself, but she got over it at the sight of how angry Gohan had become. He had his own demons involving the larger fellow, and she honestly didn`t know wether to cheer him or fear him for them.   
  
_ There's a place so dark you can't see the end  
Skies cock back and shock that which can't defend  
The rain then sends dripping an acidic question  
  
_ "Why are you here?!" Gohan demanded, grabbing onto Raditz by the tail and yanking him closer, promptly clutching his uncle at the throat. Raditz gagged slightly and slammed a fist into his nephew`s side with literally no effect at all, being forced to take this little interogation despite himself. "Get-out-of-hell-free card?" Raditz asked sarcastically, earning a well deserved slap in reply. "The real answer," Gohan demanded, throwing Raditz away a bit and forming a lethal ki blast in hand. He didn`t throw it though. He was damn close, but he didn`t throw it.   
  
_ Forcefully, the power of suggestion  
Then with the eyes tightly shut looking thought the rust and rot   
  
_ Raditz scowled a bit. "Guess I earned this little drill after the last time we met," he mused aloud. "Shut up and answer me," Gohan demanded. He was quite uncharacteristic at the moment, but understandably so, drilling twin holes into Raditz` skull and then some. The boy was mad.   
  
"There was a revolt in Hell. Nappa and I took our chance and found a way out on a fluke. We barely got out of Enma`s palace without being notice and escaped through Uranai Baba`s palace. She keeps poor company compared to a pair of Saiyan Elites..." He smirked, only to lose that same smirk as Gohan narrowed his eyes. "Then why did you come to me? Why not try and find Piccolo? He`s the one that killed you." Raditz winced. "Don`t remind me. Honestly though?"   
  
"I came back to see if I`d changed enough to earn your forgiveness."   
  
_ And dust a spot of light floods the floor  
And pours over the rusted world of pretend  
The eyes ease open and it's dark again  
  
_ Gohan gaped visibly. "You what?"   
  
Raditz nodded quietly and placed his hands behind his head. "I saw what you went through as a result of my kidnapping you and Kakarot`s death because of it. Every single tear you shed was a testimony from you and the 72,889 other souls I personally wronged," he answered while cracking his neck. "Hell has a way of making you think. Nappa may not have changed, but I learned my lesson. He`s on his way to go fight the Prince again, and me?" He paused, looking Gohan deadset in the eyes. "I`m here to see if I changed enough to earn the forgiveness of someone who counts."   
  
_ In the memory you'll find me  
Eyes burning up  
The darkness holding me tightly  
Until the sun rises up  
  
_ Gohan gulped quietly, eyes burning somewhat as he remembered what had happened back then and as a result of it. Close to eight and a half years now and he was still haunted by it. "You want me to forgive you?" Gohan asked. "Who else counts, Raditz? How many of the other 72,889 people you killed warrant as counting?" He demanded. "Kakarot, Tsania and Bardock," he answered at an instant. "I know who my dad is," Gohan replied coldly. "Who are Tsania and Bardock(*)?"   
  
Raditz winced again. "Tsania was a woman I mistakenly fell into what you people call 'love.' She got pregnant with an unborn son from me. He would have been Bardock. Guess from there, I`m not telling you another thing." Gohan growled. "You killed your own unborn son?" Raditz scowled. "Yes and I paid dearly for it." Gohan seethed to himself and looked down at the city beneath them. "I don`t forgive you Raditz. You earned what you got," he responded coldly. Raditz sank visibly and let out a hard sigh. "Great. I`ve got twenty-four hours to try and get to see if you would forgive me, and I get slapped for it."   
  
Gohan glared at him. "Don`t try playing the pity game Raditz. I saw what happened last time you used it," he ordered, promptly turning around and flying back down to the street. Videl was gone now, but he still had an observer on high, another nearby as well. "Oh well," he grumbled. After that, he looked at the note again. There was a line of text he hadn`t spotted there before, but it was too crumpled up to read. His ki must have melted some of the ink. "Hope none of it got into my pocket lining," he thought aloud, walking down the street as normalcy returned.   
  
_ Moving all around screaming of the ups and downs  
Pollution manifested in perpetual sound  
The wheels go round and the sunset creeps past the  
Street lamps, chain-link and concrete  
A little piece of paper with a picture drawn floats  
On down the street till the wind is gone  
The memory now is like the picture was then  
When the paper's crumpled up it can't be perfect again  
  
_ It was at that point that Gohan`s day had gone from being dull to angering to an outright battle for survival as the street itself exploded in flames, which ballooned up into the air brightly, several dozen people running away and a few others being unfortunately caught in the crossfire. "Forget someone, kid?" A familiar voice called out. "You again?" Gohan asked, steadying himself as Bojack walked into view, powered into his second form and showing several scars from his lethal confrontation months earlier. A bright gold halo hung over his head as well, a sign that he was indeed dead.   
  
"Not again; still. I`m annoying, aren`t I?" He asked with an arrogant grin. It was at this moment that one of those passing observers stopped being so passive, and Zangya made herself known by jumping out from the alleway she`d been hiding in, furious and shocked to see Bojack at any point after the course of the battle that had raged months earlier. "You..."   
  
Bojack broke into compulsive laughter. "If it isn`t the old group whore," he chided, leaning forward onto one knee in a cocky pose. "Bastard," Zangya called out on the spot, recieving a weird look from Gohan. "Who`s side are you on?" He asked. "My own," Zangya answered while powering up. A result of her rise in energy was a strong gust of wind in all directions, moving Gohan`s hair to the side for a moment and making his clothes rustle briefly. "Good enough," he responded while powering up himself, not even bothering with any other words. Bojack remained confident. The kid was making the same mistake all over again...   
  
Beams of solid gold rung out around the boy as his hair flared up and his eyes tinged a shade of cyan, his hair lengthening and shocking into a shade of gold that put the actual material itself to shame in it`s coloring, the air around him beginning to move faster and faster by the second before outright exploding into a golden corona, flames rising up from his feet to a few feet above his hair, which itself seemed a bit too long.   
  
Raditz, who hovered several hundred feet above this all, was utterly stunned. "My nephew`s a _Super Saiyan_?" He asked himself aloud, jaw hanging open. Sure, Cell had bragged about killing Goku, but he hadn`t said a word as to who had sent him to Hell in the first place. "Kakarot I knew about, but _him_?"   
  
Bojack yawned and cracked his neck, casually walking towards Gohan with a sadistic glint in his ego-laced eyes, coming to within a few strides of the youth before jumping straight up into the air and throwing a hard ki blast at him. He failed to anticipate Zangya`s presence though, and the orange haired woman slapped the blast out of the way easily, sending it flying up into the sky, where it blazed past Raditz and detonated several miles away.   
  
Gohan on the other hand, was fast and furious at the same time, blurring past Zangya and striking Bojack right in the scar across his stomach, causing the huge warrior to yelp a little and smack him across the side of the face. Gohan flew to the side but stopped himself with a skid in the dirt. "Bojack," he started. "Our last fight took place in a city just like this one. Want it to end the same or do you want a different setting?" Gohan asked, playing on history in an attempt to get Bojack`s ego to make him choose a battlefield far away from the masses, a battlefield he`d be able to really fight in. A battlefield such as the empty grasslands outside of the city...   
  
Bojack fell for it alright. "I don`t need a different setting but since you seem to apt to want somewhere else, any ideas, kid?" He asked. "Yes, actually."   
  
_ "What the hell is he doing?"_ Zangya asked herself. "Such as?"   
  
"There`s a large grassland out a few miles from here. No cover to hide behind, no terrain to use. Just a flat battlefield," he responded. Zangya snorted. "That`ll do just fine. Lead the way?" Bojack asked. Gohan slowly lifted from the ground and made the single most profound mistake of his life, turning his back on the hulking red headed planet killer, who took advantage brutally, fading in and reappearing behind Gohan as Zangya screamed out. "Look out!"   
  
Too late.   
  
Gohan let out a yelp as he crashed through the side of a building, then out the opposite end and repeated the process a half dozen times, eventually impacting the ground and bouncing off after a brief skid, once again skidding around and finally coming to a total stop altogether. Exactly in the middle of the very battlefield he`d wanted to take the fighting to. "Should learn to watch my back," he mumbled to himself while fading from Super Saiyan and passing out.   
  
Zangya on the other hand, was utterly irate, attacking Bojack recklessly with punches that could level mountains at an instant, though each only barely phased the huge fighter, who casually grabbed her by the hair. "What`s wrong bitch, don`t wanna speak to your favorite fighter anymore?" He asked, slapping her on the side of the face and grabbing her hands. Zangya spat at him and kicked repeatedly, furiously trying to get herself free of him. Instead?   
  
She got the deepest french kiss of her life. "Mmmm," Bojack groaned out while yanking at her hair. Zangya was revolted, to say the least. She and he had indeed been what you`d call, very loosely, 'lovers' at one point in time. That point ended when he pushed her at the unconcious adolescent killing machine several months earlier and died a well earned, brutal death. Finally though, she did the only thing she could: She bit down. Hard.   
  
"Galgh!" Bojack yelped, yanking his tongue out and getting it skinned slightly in the process. "Fuhhin` biff!" He cursed out, trying to not use his bleeding, pained tongue. Zangya just laughed a bit before he yanked her by the hair and slammed her into the ground, cracking it with the impact of her comparitively small form. Raditz snorted a bit, watching this all play out. It was like seeing himself with any of the countless women on the planets he`d helped purge and purged alone, all life exterminated save for nonsentient plants. Even most of those.   
  
_ "Who do I help? The psycho bitch or my nephew?"   
  
  
  
_ Outside the city, a small form was suddenly overshadowed as Gohan`s first, true mentor, entered the scene, angry and not afraid to show it in the least. "So. Dende was right, Bojack`s returned. So has Raditz," he mused, taking off his cloak and turban and ripping the shoulder pads off. After that, he laid out the cloak`s cape-end over Gohan like a blanket, tossing his turban aside, where it rested simply over the unconcious youth`s body as intended. "I hope we`re all still alive by the time you wake up, Gohan. We`re going to need you for this."   
  
Piccolo reached up and cracked his neck as energy in turn proceeded to rise off of him in a bright ethereal blue aura, launching from the ground rapidly and charging towards Satan City with a loud cry of war.   
  
  
  
"Come on Zangya, can`t hit me?" Bojack asked, dodging around each and every one of the shorter woman`s blows with laughter ringing around him. Zangya growled deeply, forming a ki blast in one hand and baiting him into dodging her kick, then throwing the blast into his face at point blank. For what it was worth, it made Bojack stagger back and hold the burn with his eyes closed, swinging blindly as the smaller combatant in this battle used her size to her advantage, jumping up and tagging Bojack in the gut with her knee, throwing him up from the ground and into a double backhand, which threw him back down into the cement of the road, followed by a rapid series of ki blasts.   
  
Wasn`t worth much, but she tried.   
  
_ Now you got me caught in the act  
** You bring the thought back**  
I'm telling you that  
** I see it right through you**  
_  
"Well, wasn`t that fun?" Bojack asked, scraping himself up out of the crater Zangya had built around him. He was a little bruised but effectively unharmed. "Damn it," Zangya groaned out, forming another ki blast before Bojack pulled back, and in a movement almost too quickly for her eyes to follow, sent another ki blast right back at her.   
  
It never hit. It instead met the powerful hands of a long dead Saiyan elite, who`s skin burned from doing what he had managed. "You alright?" Raditz asked, shaking the burning sensation from his hand. "Yes," she replied. _"Glad I actually trained while dead,"_ Raditz mused. _"Certainly paid off now, even if I`m weak compared to Kakarot and my nephew,"_ he thought while turning back to face Bojack. "You remind me of myself, you know that?" Raditz asked. Bojack smirked, that same kind of smirk that Raditz used to have during a purge. "What`s that supposed to mean?" He asked.   
  
"That means I`m going to have to kill you," Raditz answered.   
  
"Assuming I don`t first," a new voice added as a familiar looking shoe embedded itself in the small of the large tyrant`s back, a series of brutal blasts flashing off of him as they exploded on impact, causing Bojack to lurch forward and turn around quickly, swiping at the newly arrived Piccolo. "We meet again, Bojack," he stated simply. "Oh goody. I`m surrounded by a slut, an asexual pixie and a pretty boy wannabe on steroids," Bojack quipped with a roll of the eyes. "I am _not_ a pretty boy," Raditz grumbled in response.   
  
"Sure you`re not," Zangya quipped while flying over his shoulder and striking out at Bojack as brutally as she could manage. He just cocked his head to the side and threw a balled up fist into her gut, sending her skyward before a pair of strong arms caught her. "You really need to learn to fight at a distance," Piccolo muttered. "Like this," he advised, throwing his arms, literally, out into the so-called 'mystic attack,' extending them several hundred feet down and punching Bojack twice, then a third time and then grabbing him around the throat. Bojack just chuckled and grabbed them, then pulled the sections in his hands until they broke off. Piccolo screamed and withdrew his arms back as blood spurted from the stumps, his hands regrowing after a few seconds. "Like that?" Zangya asked. "Oh shut up."   
  
Raditz on the other hand, had gone ballistic, charging in and lashing out at Bojack repeatedly up close, throwing blow after menacing blow only to have each end with either no effect at all or miss entirely. _"Just like fighting Vegeta,"_ he thought darkly, then decided to use the same technique he`d employed on Vegeta so many times before: Hitting him where it hurt.   
  
The medallion was the most obvious target. Raditz spotted it easily, mainly since it stuck out like a sore thumb. Or a tail.   
  
Raditz made a grab at it, and Bojack instantly became very dodgy, avoiding everything almost desperately. That was when Piccolo made his observation. "Take out the medallion," he muttered in clarity. "What the hell do you think I`ve been trying to do this whole time?" Zangya asked annoyedly. "Oh."   
Raditz was still having a very uneasy time with things, barely avoiding a hard kick to the gut when Zangya and Piccolo both returned to the fray. Piccolo dodged, Zangya attacked, and Bojack swatted both away like flies before knocking out Raditz. He was out like a light now, lying in the middle of a body imprint in the sidewalk as Piccolo and Zangya scraped themselves off of the road a few dozen yards away and readied to block the inevitable assault from Bojack. It never came though.   
  
"He`s awake," Piccolo smirked out as the entire area seemed to shake and small explosions of energy rippled off of the ground. "Shit!" Bojack yelled. "Why the f-" He never managed to even complete the sentence. In exactly the same spot as before, a hand had impaled him all over again, crimson blood spewing out behind him and into the air. "God damn it," Bojack whimpered out. "I told you we should take this into a field, but no," Gohan grumbled, obviously very angry and obviously not about to take his time. "Why is it a kid has to hand me my ass twice in a row?" Bojack whimpered again before losing his voice.   
  
Gohan didn`t even give him the dignity of the kind of death he`d suffered before, jumping straight up and kneeing his foe right in the chin, a move that sent Bojack`s decapitated head flying into the stratosphere before it, and the body as well, vanished in a pair of twin flashes of light. "Bojack`s been forced on into his next incarnation," Piccolo mused aloud. Things were silent now as Gohan powered back down, ignoring the other two and staring at Raditz. "I guess I`m in for a busy afternoon," he stated, glancing over and waving to Piccolo before departing.   
  
"That had to be the most anti-climactic end to a fight I`ve ever been in," Zangya mumbled. "I`ve seen worse," Piccolo answered with a smile.   
  
Several minutes passed before a weary Gohan trudged into the store, calmly avoiding stares from several people who managed to recognize him as having been there when Bojack popped up. It was a miracle no one had spotted him when he was transforming, a miracle still no one had seen him after the fact, given the fact that even if his hair and eyes changed drastically, the clothes stayed the same. There was still an oversized burn mark on the back of his gi shirt, and a few singe marks on one of his arms, but he was doing a nice job ignoring them with an uncharacteristic grimace. Without a word, he reached into his pocket and took out the note, handing it to the lady at the counter and spending the next few minutes waiting as the woman got together a few dresses for ChiChi.   
  
"You want these in a bag or anything?" She asked. "Yeah. Actually, is it too much to ask for a drycleaning bag for each of them?" He asked curiously, face lighting up a bit. "Sure, but I don`t know why," she mumbled while doing as he asked. Gohan took the clothing and handed her the money, not even staying to grab the change or the receipt before darting off down the street, getting a decent distance from everything and then launching up into the sky like a bullet, headed straight for the West as quickly as he could go without transforming.   
  
When he arrived, the Capsule Corp building looked like a bomb had hit the eastern section and wiped out part of the yard, an irate Bulma and Vegeta arguing in the side yard beside the crater as Gohan touched down and waved to them. "Hey Bulma?" Gohan asked. She didn`t hear him, she was still screaming at Vegeta, who was screaming right back. _"Wonder what happened to them?"_ Gohan thought with a chargrinned expression before gathering a bit of ki and throwing it up into the air, exercising his control over it and causing the ball to expolode like an oversized firecracker.   
  
Bulma screeched and jumped behind Vegeta, who snarled and shot his gaze up at where the blast had gone off, then looked down at where it had originated to see a slightly banged up looking Gohan with a few drycleaning bags tossed over his shoulder. "What the hell do you want?!" Both Bulma and Vegeta yelled in the same moment, making Gohan blink twice before mentally noting never to interrupt them again. "I`ll just... Go ask Trunks. Yeah."   
  
And with that, Gohan darted through the massive opening that had been blown out of the eastern side of the building, not taking the front door and running to escape the furious sounds of Bulma and Vegeta arguing again. After a few seconds, he stopped, looking around in the Capsule Corp lobby and spotting Mirai Trunks sitting down and rocking his infant self to sleep gently. "Hey Trunks.. es," Gohan corrected himself with a mumble several seconds afterward. Mirai Trunks shifted his gaze up and nodded to Gohan before speaking. "Why are you here?" He asked calmly. "Came to ask for the Dragon Radar, ya mind?"   
  
"Go ahead," Trunks shrugged, still rocking his sleeping infant self to sleep. Gohan paused though, raising an eyebrow. "What the heck happened here anyway? Vegeta get too much coffee again?" Gohan asked, tilting his head to the side with a raised eyebrow. Trunks shrugged. "Had a visitor. Father took care of him but that`s all I know," he answered. Gohan nodded again and then darted down the nearest hallway, coming up on Doctor Briefs, who currently looked to be assembling some thing or another in his usual state. Few people would ever really guess he actually put marijuana in his pipe rather than tobacco...   
  
Then again, maybe that`s why he was so calm.   
  
"Hey Dr. Briefs," Gohan said with a small wave. The doctor mumbled something before going back to work, the cat perched on his shoulder waving a paw at Gohan as he dug through a nearby chest, grabbed the Dragon Radar and then exited the building the way he had come through, managing to avoid Mrs. Brief`s fairly easy since she was going about her day as usual in the front yard tending her garden. "... Well it`s not my fault Nappa had to come back from the dead!" "Maybe if you hadn`t killed him to begin with!" "What the hell else was I supposed to do to him?! Let him be a crippled eight foot tall gimp the rest of his life?!"   
  
Gohan just gave a timid wave to the pair and darted up into the skies, intent on making a wish or two of his own...   
  
  
  
Raditz woke up. He was in a different place now. Far different. It was sunny. Beautiful even, as well as warm. He felt a little heavier here. It felt almost as if someone had put him back on Vegetasei during springtime, even the rings that could be viewed in early afternoon were visible up in the distance. "Where am I?" He asked himself aloud, looking down. He was still in his battle armor. Still had his tail and he was still intact everywhere else. Virtually every injury that had ever left a mark was entirely gone, even that nasty gash across his back, and the scars that marked his chest and arm from Piccolo`s killing attack were both gone. What was this place? His question was soundly answered a few seconds later as a certain blue skinned redhead walked into view with a baby boy that looked remarkably like himself at that age, despite skin and hair color differences, running around in front of her gleefully. "Tsania?" He choked out with a smile. Bardock jumped into his father`s arms, and for perhaps the first time in over a decade, Raditz felt alive again, even when he`d been dead all along.   
  
  
  
"Why?" Zangya asked aloud, watching as Gohan touched down in front of the Son house and knocked on the door. It was early evening now, very early in fact. Her question only lead to more though, accept these came from another source, seated upon a tree branch a few feet above her, within the same tree she herself leaned against. "Why did he do what he did today? Or why did he let you live?" Piccolo asked, cape dangling down from the tree branch and billowing slightly in the cool wind of the evening. "Number two. Do you know why?" She asked, looking back up at him curiously. Piccolo gave a nod and smirked. "Gohan`s a merciful person. At the time it was probably just because he was focused on killing Bojack too much to even notice you, but after that his sense of mercy took effect," Piccolo answered, and at that moment, Zangya could feel something lift off of her shoulders.   
  
"Thank you, then," she mouthed out to the boy who now waited for his mother to open the door to the Son family home. He didn`t have to wait for very long. ChiChi slid the door open and looked at her slightly dirtied son, who had a good bit of mud and other nasty gunk all over him, carrying three or four dresses for ChiChi, wrapped in dirty drycleaning bags to keep them safe and dry from the looks of things, but still a Son family grin plastered all over his face. "What did you do this time, Gohan?" ChiChi asked. Gohan just shrugged a bit. "Made a wish," Gohan mumbled out innocently before speaking up again. "Why`d you make me get you bigger clothes anyway?" Gohan asked curiously. ChiChi smiled a bit. He hadn`t seen that part of the note after all.   
  
It was at this moment that Son Gohan`s life changed for the better. It was also the same moment someone else was forgiven, and the same moment that someone else still made his presence known.   
  
"You`re going to be a big brother, Gohan," ChiChi announced, feeling the first kick of the future member of the family.   
  
_

End  


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** Author`s Notes:** * = A fanfic I wrote recently(probably never to be posted here...) gave Raditz a son he never knew and a lover he killed in rage. The boy was named Bardock Junior and he would have looked like a light blue skinned Raditz with a red fur tail and very dark(Vegeta level in color) brown hair in a similar pattern to Raditz` own hair.   
  
And for those who haven`t figured it out yet, Bojack just moved on *wink*   
  
**_Advertising Llama_**: Go read "Solar Eclipse"(Story ID: 457454) by DoraMouse.  
  
Hope you enjoyed the fic, leave a review if you`d be so kind. The _Sh33p_  



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